Songwriting App & Cakewalk

[chamlin]

For years, I've used a high quality Sony digital voice recorder for songwriting when out of the house or even just sitting with a guitar at home. When ready, I can import those files into Cakewalk for playing around with song structure. The Sony allows me to create folders for each song and I have a few hundred folders. But the 1 inch old style display is soooo hard on my eyes and navigating around is clodgy in that I have to click click click sometimes dozens of times to reach a folder. My Tascam DR-100mkII is great but it doesn't allow folder navigation. Which is why...

Anyone know of an android voice recorder app that allows file folders and easy navigation? Not worried about sound quality.  I want to be able to:

1. Open the app, navigate to a song folder, and start reviewing or recording;
2. Open the app, record and save as by navigating to a folder

Suggestions?

[Kevin Walsh]

I use my phone's voice recorder built-in app. I don't think it allows folder creation/navigation but that's something you could do with a file manager outside the app easily enough, and my phone has plenty of storage for that stuff. I have a Samsun S10e. The built in mic has great quality for a phone and it's more than adequate and damned handy.

As for organizing, I don't do that on my phone. I load them up to my computer every couple of days and clean then off my phone. Once they're on my computer I typically spend a couple of hours going through them, tossing out the crap and organizing ones with promise into folders. It works well and it's fast and convenient. A friend of mine has an old Tascam 8 track deck that he uses. I can't imagine using that bulky old thing.

There's also the Zoom devices that do allow file management. I have one of those and they're great for band rehearsals. I have one with 4 XLR inputs plus the stereo condenser mic pair mounted on the device. They sound fantastic for that, but I've found it too cumbersome for capturing those fast-moving ideas that pop into my head and then all too quickly out again.

Good luck!

[chamlin]

Thanks, Kevin, that's helpful. My intent is to keep all of the tunes-in-progress (sometimes years worth) right at hand on the phone, thus easily accessing, listening to and recording to the songs in their respective folders is critical. The Sony does this but it's like working with DOS. I'll check out some file managers.

But the hope is for an app to be able to organize, playback, record seamlessly.

[razor7music]

Me too. I just use the built-in voice recorder app on my Android and then email the audio file to myself to transfer to my DAW.

[chamlin]

Exactly. It's 2020, and surely there's a better way.

Where I'm heading since I haven't found anything is to use either Evernote or Microsoft's Onenote. Have Onenote and will experiment with that. Could work AND keep my app and PC in sync, which would be an upgrade.

[TheMaartian]

I gave up on OneNote. Way more than I need. Didn't like working with the Android version. Or the desktop version.

Switched to Evernote. Easy to use Android and Windows apps.

One word of caution. I have the Plus Plan ($34.99/year). That seems to not be available anymore. It's either Free, or Premium ($7.99/mo) or Business ($14.99/user/mo (min. 2)).

The Free plan is limited to 60MB of uploads per month. If you're using it to just capture lyric ideas, the Free plan should be fine.

Now I know why I've been getting regular UPGRADE emails. Ha!

I'm going to hang on to that Plus plan.

[msmcleod]

Just a thought... but you could try the BandLab mobile app.

You can then import directly into Cakewalk via BandLab assistant.

[chamlin]

Hmm...would the BandLab app allow me to:

1. Create a folder for each song I'm working on (these are just song ideas, melodies, lyrics in progress)
2. Let me record more ideas into the relevant song folder?

Don't need them to go to CW as these are ideas not actual recording recordings